The King's Roses
by EFAW
Summary: When the roses bloom, the faeries dance in Wes's garden. Oneshot.


**Summary:** When the roses bloom, the faeries dance in Wes's garden.

 **Warnings:** T. Wesvis. Fae. Not nice fairies. Magic. Grief. Mentions of death.

 **Disclaimer:** I neither own nor am affiliated with Common Law in any way.

 **OOOO**

 **The King's Roses**

" _You cannot control faeries. Can. Not. They aren't logical or rational. They don't obey the same laws (physical, social, emotional, traffic—you name it) that we do."_

— _Kiersten White_

 **XXXX**

The night after the roses bloom, Wes is woken by the sound of bells and laughter and music. He lays in bed for a long time staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out if he's dreaming or not. He certainly _feels_ awake.

Slowly, he climbs out of bed, sliding on his slippers and wrapping his arms around himself. He shuffles over to the window, peering through the sheer curtains. And he stares.

There are people dancing in his garden, tall, sinuous figures in long dresses and robes, moving with an inhuman flexibility and grace. Orbs of light float in the air, following the music, casting the dancers in soft light. Even from here, Wes can see how beautiful each and every one of them are.

He watches them for a long time, long enough that the sun starts to creep over the horizon, and he's surprised because it felt like no time at all.

 **XXXX**

"I think I'm going insane," Wes declares.

Dr. Ryan, the town's physician, smiles, eyes twinkling. "Oh my, that sounds serious indeed. Is it all this country air, do you think?"

"Ha ha." Wes frowns and crosses his arms. "I'm serious."

She shifts into doctor mode in an instant. "Tell me."

So he does. He tells her about the lights, and the dancers, and the music he's never heard before but sounds so familiar. He tells her about waking up every night for the past week and watching them, and sometimes he wants to go out and join them but he never does.

By the end of his story, the doctor's face has settled from concern to a different, subtler expression Wes can't name.

"So what's the verdict?" he asks, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Have I gone and lost my mind?"

"Of course not." The doctor waves a dismissive hand. "You're not insane. They're faeries."

He gapes at her. "Faeries."

"Yes. You know, the wild ones, the people under the hill, the fair folk. Faeries." She frowns. "I'm more concerned about why they're at your house."

"Faeries don't exist," he protests.

Dr. Ryan just smiles inscrutably. "Maybe not in the city where you're from, but out here, the wild ones are very real. And you, Mr. Mitchell, have them in your garden."

 **XXXX**

There's a man leaning up against his fence when he returns from his unsatisfying counsel with Dr. Ryan. For a moment, his mind full of faeries and dancing, Wes thinks the man might be one of them, coming to visit in the bright of the sun.

"Can I help you?"

But when the man turns, he's just a man with bright blue eyes and skin the color of coffee. He's got tattoos on his arms, deep purple rosebuds at his wrists with long, thorny vines that wind up his forearms, past his shoulders to end in a tangled ring around his neck.

They're very strange tattoos. Every time he blinks, Wes is certain the thorns shift, just a little bit, but he's also very certain they're not moving at all. It unsettles him—he doesn't stare for long.

Then the man smiles, a bright slash of white teeth, and his blue eyes sparkle like the sun coming up again.

"Sorry about loitering," the man says, pushing off the fence. "I was just admiring your roses. They're beautiful."

Wes moves up to the fence, standing a cautious distance away, and looks at the garden. It was a wild, uncultured mess when he arrived, but he's spent months pruning and weeding and planting, and everything is blooming beautifully. Flowers of every shape and color ring the walkways, a fragrant explosion of petals.

The masterpiece of the garden is the roses, a massive bush in the center of the yard. Wes has never seen roses like them, deep purple blooms with lavender centers that are big enough to cover his entire hand.

"Thank you," he says simply.

From the corner of his eye, he sees the man smile. "You know, there's a legend behind those roses."

"Oh?" Wes raises an eyebrow, turns a little more fully to the man. "Is that so?"

"Mm-hmm." The mean leans against the fence again, watching him with those dancing eyes. "They say the violet roses are the faerie king's. That they used to be in his garden, and when the roses would bloom, the king would hold the most fabulous dances."

Wes feels a shiver run down his spine. "Faeries aren't real," he whispers.

"Oh. Of course." The man smiles, slow and mysterious, the sort of smile that says _I know something you don't know._

Wes blinks, and the rose tattoos on the man's arms seem to shift, and he feels cold.

 **XXXX**

His grandmother believed in faeries. _They've been here longer than we have_ , she'd say, eyes wide and imploring him to believe. _They live in the shadows and the corners, in the whispers in the wind and the pools of moonlight in the meadow. Respect them, and never cross them._

He remembers walking through the house, touching windows and stretching to try and reach the tops of the doors. Horseshoes over the doors and nails in the windowsills, because cold iron kept the wild ones out. But every night she would put a saucer of milk on the doorstep, so they wouldn't get offended by her iron.

When Wes moved into his grandmother's cottage, he hadn't bothered to take the horseshoes down or pull the nails up. It had been much too much effort at the time.

Now he stares at the horseshoe above the front door, and he remembers waking as a child in the middle of the night and hearing music, and he wonders if there's something to the stories after all.

 **XXXX**

"Morning, Wes!"

He turns, groceries in hand, and smiles warmly. "Morning, Peter. And Dakota—haven't you had that baby yet?"

Dakota laughs, pattering her very round belly. "Just about. Any day now, Dr. Ryan says."

"Wonderful," Wes says, and he means it, even if it causes a pang to go through his chest. "Have you come up with a name yet?"

The couple share a look and identical smiles. "Lorelai Marie, if it's a girl," Dakota says.

"And Jacob Lee, for a boy," Peter finishes.

Wes smiles. "Then if you have twins, you're covered."

Dakota and Peter laugh, then say their goodbyes. Wes makes sure his smile doesn't drop until they're gone.

 **XXXX**

It aches, a loss deep in his chest he can't fill with anything. He moved all the way to the countryside to escape it, but it just followed him, wrapping around him and filling the empty spaces with only pain.

Nights are the worst, when the aching hole is torn open, and sometimes Wes sits at his window and thinks about going outside, about letting himself be drawn into the faerie dance until everything else fades away.

 **XXXX**

"My name is Mark, by the way."

Wes sits back on his heels, wipes his brow. The stranger with the tattoos smiles from the fence. Despite himself, Wes smiles back. "I'm, um, Wes Mitchell."

"Well, Wes Mitchell." Mark leans over the fence, casual and easy and charming. "Do you need a hand?"

Wes looks around, at the garden that _always_ needs more tending. "What do you know about gardening?"

"Not a damn thing." Mark grins, bright and full of cheer. "But I'm pretty good company."

Wes looks at his garden again, rubbing absently at his chest. And he thinks it's been an awful long time since he's had someone over.

"Sure," he says, and watches the sun bloom on Mark's face as he steps inside.

 **XXXX**

After more than ten hours of labor, Dakota gives birth. Peter laughs when he gives the news, his entire face shining brightly. "It's a girl!" he declares, giving Wes a hearty hug that, just this once, Wes allows.

"Congratulations," he says, and he's sincere enough. They've been so excited about this baby, it's not fair to dampen the mood with his own pain. "I'll bring something by later."

"Thanks, man." Peter claps him on the back, then races out, prepared to spread the news to everyone.

Wes watches him go and rubs at his chest and tries to ignore the ache in his heart.

 **XXXX**

That night Wes opens the window. The music slides in, bells and drums and whistling flutes like he's never heard before, winding around him like an almost corporeal thing with a mind of its own. Wes closes his eyes, and the music slides inside of him, filling the empty places in his chest like nothing else has.

 _Join us_ , the music seems to say, _Dance with us and we'll take the pain away._

And he wants it, wants to go dance until nothing hurts anymore. He's a good dancer, but he hasn't danced since before everything changed, before everything was taken away. He's sure he could learn the steps.

Something icy cold presses against his palm, and he blinks. He finds himself leaning halfway out the window, his hands presses flat against the sill. When he pulls his hand away, he sees the exposed heads of iron nails, carefully placed in the sill, and round white marks on his palm that still feel cold.

He runs his fingers over the nail heads, and listens to music that's not as compelling as it was a minute ago, and he feels a shiver run down his spine.

 **XXXX**

The roses are blooming.

After days of Mark sitting there talking, Wes has finally corralled him into helping weed the garden. Wes spends twenty minutes showing the other male what is a weed and what is most definitely _not_ a weed, then sends Mark off, keeping a careful eye to make sure Mark doesn't accidentally rip up a handful of flowers.

It doesn't take long, under the heat of the sun, for Mark to strip off his shirt and hang it on the fence. His torso and back are covered in more tattoos, a riot of tangled thorns, and Wes can do nothing but stare. Mark notices the attention, and he tosses Wes a slow, leering grin. "See something you like?"

Wes swallows. "The roses are blooming."

Mark frowns, following Wes's gaze to his chest, to his shoulders and arms, where big purple roses are blooming in the thorny tattoos on his skin. It shouldn't mean much, but Wes has been close enough to be certain that a few days ago, the only roses on Mark's skin were tiny buds, circling his wrists.

Now there are _dozens_ , in full bloom, almost blocking the thorns on his chest and back completely.

"Huh," Mark says, turning his arm this way and that. "Would you look at that? You must be a really good gardener, Wes."

Despite the sun beating down, Wes feels cold. "Are you a faerie, Mark?"

"Thought you didn't believe in faeries, Wes," Mark laughs, which isn't really an answer at all.

Wes swallows, wraps his hand around the handle of his gardening trowel. "I'm considering changing my opinion."

"I see." Mark studies him, and Wes tries not to feel like he can see right through him. "I'm not a faerie, Wes. Promise."

But Wes stares at Mark's tattoos and can't seem to get warm.

The roses are blooming.

 **XXXX**

Wes watches at night, and it's not hard to see him, moving through the crowd of dancers, head thrown back and eyes closed. Under the shifting, spinning lights, his tattoos seem to move more than ever.

The dancers are beautiful, ethereally so, but Wes's gaze is drawn to the same small figure, again and again and again.

 **XXXX**

"Are you a faerie?" he asks again.

Mark pauses, wipes his brow. "We already had this conversation, Wes."

Wes stares at the tattoos and remembers how they shifted in the dancing lights. There are more roses than ever, now, roses upon roses. Mark's skin is thick with them.

"I saw you dancing," he whispers. "In the garden, with the others."

Mark sits back on his heels, hands dangling between his knees. "Ah."

"Who are you, Mark? _What_ are you?"

"I'm human." But Wes doesn't believe him, and it must show on his face. Mark sighs and climbs to his feet; Wes watches him walk to the back door, reach up, and come back.

He tosses the horseshoe to Wes. "I couldn't touch that if I wasn't human. The wild ones would burn touching that."

Wes turns the horseshoe in his hands, feeling lost and more than a little confused.

There's no such thing as faeries. Except, apparently, that there are. And Mark is… "But the roses are blooming."

"It's a curse." Wes looks up. Mark runs his fingers over the winding tattoos on his neck. "A very powerful enchantment that binds me to them. I'm not a faerie, but I belong to them." His smile is a little crooked, and very sad. His eyes are suddenly very, very old. "I told you, didn't I? The violet roses belong to the faerie king."

Wes doesn't know what to say. What comes out is, "There's no such thing as curses."

Mark just chuckles, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. "A couple weeks ago, you said the same thing about faeries."

 **XXXX**

They dance in his garden, and he watches from the window, and he thinks about faerie kings and purple roses.

 **XXXX**

"I made you a casserole," he informs Peter, handing over the covered dish. "I couldn't figure out what to get you."

"This is great," Peter says, stepping aside so Wes can enter. "We've gotten every sort of baby present you can think of, but neither of us has really been in a cooking mood lately."

"Cooking?" Dakota questions, stepping into the room with her little girl cuddled against her chest. "Did someone cook for us?"

"Wes did." Peter slides the casserole dish into the fridge and gives Wes a bright smile. "Thank you so much. You have no idea."

"It's not a problem" Wes murmurs, embarrassed even though there's nothing to be embarrassed about. "I like to cook."

He turns to Dakota, holding out the bundle under his arm to her. "And this is for you."

"Oh, they're beautiful." Dakota hands the baby to Peter and takes the bouquet, admiring the profusion of color. She holds the flowers under her nose and takes a deep breath, sighing happily. "I love flowers. They're lovely, Wes. From your garden?"

"That's right."

"Well, they'll certainly brighten up the place." She sets the bouquet on the counter and starts searching cabinets, for a vase, Wes assumes. "No roses, though, right? Wouldn't want the faerie king to steal my baby."

Wes pauses. "What? That can happen?"

"So they say." Dakota glances over and laughs at his face. "Oh, don't worry, we have protection. We'll be okay." She points to the backdoor, where a horseshoe identical to Wes's hangs above the doorframe.

Wes thinks what a strange place the country is, where people say 'I have protection' instead of 'faeries don't exist', and mythical creatures dance in the moonlight in a garden full of roses.

 **XXXX**

"Does the faerie king steal babies?" Wes asks during a break in the gardening.

"Sometimes, so they say," Mark says, leaning against Wes's shoulder. Wes doesn't really like this sort of contact, but with Mark…well, Wes doesn't particularly mind as much as he normally would.

"Why?" he wonders, staring at the purple roses hanging off the big bush in his yard. "What use does he have for a baby?"

"Who knows?" Mark murmurs, stretching his legs out in front of him. "They're as alien from you and I as we are to birds and fish. Who knows why they do what they do."

Wes hums absently, eyes trailing to the tattoos on Mark's arms, thorns and vines full of blooming purple roses. As ever, Wes gets the sense the tattoos are moving, even though every time he looks they're just inked flowers, stationary and lifeless.

 _Is that what happened to you?_ he wonders, resisting the urge to touch the painted flowers. _Did they take you from your home and keep you? Is that why he's bound you with roses and thorns?_

He doesn't ask. He bites his tongue against the words and breaths in Mark's scent, like earth and musk and the faintest scent of roses.

 **XXXX**

The faeries don't dance. Wes sits at the window for a long time, staring out at his dark garden, and he wonders what it means. If it means anything at all.

Finally, he goes to bed. It's the longest uninterrupted sleep he's had since the roses bloomed, but Wes wouldn't necessarily say it's restful. His dreams are full of thorny vines, wrapped around a figure like a cage, and all he can see of the person is a pair of pain-filled blue eyes.

 **XXXX**

Mark doesn't come by. Wes waits for hours before giving up and heading into town.

 **XXXX**

Early in the morning, Dakota runs barefoot into the street, screaming and wailing, clutching a bundle of sticks and mud to her chest. Peters runs after her, but she moves like a woman possessed, always a step ahead. She runs for half a mile before they catch her, right before the woods, and it takes four people to subdue her and bring her back to town. When someone takes the dirty blankets from her arms, it's as though she loses her mind, and Dr. Ryan has to sedate her before she calms.

Wes isn't there to witness any of it. He hears about it later, when he goes to town for food. It's all anyone can talk about, a susurration of whispers on every corner. And along with the story, one word is repeated, over and over and over again.

 **XXXX**

"What's a changeling?"

Dr. Ryan looks up, eyebrows rising. "You don't know?" Her face clears when he shakes his head. "No, of course you wouldn't, would you?"

She moves around her desk, gestures for him to sit. "It's an old story, from long before this town was even a village. Legend has it that there was a young woman, a lovely girl who was fawned over and adored by her husband." The doctor smirks wryly. "Sound familiar?"

"The woman had a child," she continues, "and one night when the moon was high, the woman got up to check on her child. The baby was fine, sleeping soundly, but every time she lay down, instinct told her something was wrong. And yet, every time she checked, the baby continued to sleep peacefully."

"But something _was_ wrong, wasn't it?" Wes asks.

"Oh, yes." Dr. Ryan folds her hands. "For when the sunlight came through the window, the child disappeared, leaving behind a pile of mud and twigs. It was an enchantment, made to confound the eyes."

"She picked up the bundle and ran through the woods, ignoring her husband who tried to stop her. She ran all the way to the fairy hill, and she threw herself at the base of the hill and begged the fae to return her child."

Wes swallows. "Did it work?"

The doctor shakes her head. "She stayed there day and night, screaming until her throat bled. By the fourth night, stories say, she was mad, tearing her skin and hair, unseeing and unhearing to anything but the hill."

Wes feels a shiver run down his spine, imagining the same happening to Dakota. Sweet Dakota… "What happened?" he asks in a hushed whisper.

Dr. Ryan smiles sadly. "Stories say on the seventh night, the husband took an axe and ended his wife's misery. Then he took his own life, unable to live with what he'd done. And that's the changeling's tale."

Wes shudders. To think of kind, sweet Dakota and Peter meeting such a fate…no. "And the child? What happened to it?"

She shakes her head. "It was never seen again. Some stories say the babe was eaten, others say it was raised as a pet for the wild ones. But no one really knows."

"I see." Wes slowly leans forward, clasping his hands in front of his face. "Doctor, did I cause this? With my roses, did I bring them here to steal Dakota's baby?"

There's a long moment of silence. "I don't believe so," she says finally. "If they wanted to take the child, they would have come with or without your roses."

Wes nods, but his stomach still feels heavy with guilt. It isn't mollified by her next words.

"I don't believe it was your fault, but there will be those who do."

 **XXXX**

The thing is, guilt isn't a rational emotion. It's an insidious thing, snaking under the skin, wrapping around his throat until he can feel it in every cell. It digs its thorns in, and it may not be his fault, but he carries the weight of it anyway.

Wes knows it wasn't his fault, not directly. He didn't going into Dakota's house and take her baby away. But he can't help thinking that he's at least part of the problem. Him and his roses.

Others feel the same. No one says anything, but he can feel their accusatory stares on the back of his head.

And the guilt digs its claws and sinks in.

It's happening all over again. It wasn't his fault. There was nothing he could have done to stop it from happening.

He still feels responsible.

 **XXXX**

He goes to the town's tiny library. He takes everything they have on changelings, faeries, and the town history to a table. It's not much; he gets birth and census records for the last few hundred years, and a handful of books on faeries and myths and local legends.

He spends the afternoon learning everything he can about the wild ones and the changeling's tale. Anything he can use to get Dakota's baby back.

Wes wasn't the one who took her child from the crib, but it was, in some small way, his fault. The only difference is that this time, he might be able to fix this.

It won't hurt anything to try. He'll only be risking himself.

Then, just as he's packing up to make this probably-suicidal mission he sees something. A single, tiny annotation in the corner of one page that changes everything.

Wes stares at the page and says, "Oh."

 **XXXX**

There's a familiar figure outside his garden when he comes home. He breathes in relief. "Thank god you're here."

Mark turns, eyes dancing. "That's quite a welcome. Any special reason?"

Wes strides up, grabs the other male's arm and says, low and urgent, "Dakota's baby was taken by the wild ones."

Bright blue eyes blink slowly. "I have no idea who that is."

"No, you wouldn't." Wes takes a breath. "I need your help to get the baby back."

Another slow, puzzled blink. "And why would I do that?"

"Because you're a changeling."

The smile on Mark's face never falters, but Wes gets the sense he's completely closed himself off. "Well, aren't you just a smart little cookie," he drawls, gently pulling out of Wes's grip. "But that's not a reason I should help you."

"They took Dakota's baby," Wes implores. "Just like they took you. Do you really want another child to grow up with them like you did?"

Mark turns and stomps away. He stops, scrubs his hand over his face. And then he comes back. "You really think you can do this?" he demands.

"I think," Wes says slowly, "that there's nothing lost from trying."

"What about you?" Mark jabs him sharply. "You could be lost."

Wes smiles, small and sad. "That wouldn't be too much of a loss, then."

The other man's face twists, but he doesn't say anything except, "We'd better get going."

 **XXXX**

"There are three rules you absolutely must remember," Mark says as he leads the way through the woods. The sun has already set, but Mark moves through the trees like he doesn't even notice. Wes is a little less graceful.

"The first rule," he says, ducking beneath a branch that almost clocks Wes in the face. "You don't trust your eyes. You can't believe what you see. The wild ones are masters of glamours and illusion. If you're confused, close your eyes. Your other senses won't lie to you."

"Close my eyes," Wes grunts, hopping a log. "Trust my senses. Got it."

Mark squeezes between two trees. Wes almost goes around, then thinks that magic is involved and you never really know with these things, so he slithers through the gap.

"Second rule. You mustn't eat or drink anything, no matter how hungry or thirsty you are. Anything you consume can be used to trap you there for a hundred years."

"No food or drink," Wes echoes. "Right."

"Rule three." Mark stops, turns so suddenly Wes almost runs into him. His eyes bore into Wes's like gimlets. "This is the most important rule, Wes. You must never, _ever_ give them your full name. They can use it to bind you to them. It's an enchantment even stronger than these." He gestures to the thorns encircling his neck, his wrists. "If they get your name, they'll have you forever."

Wes swallows. "Okay. Never say my name. Got it."

"Good." Mark nods, face drawn tight. "Good. Just remember the rules, and you might be okay." He puts a hand on Wes's shoulder, mouth twisting. "I got you to the nursery, but that's as far as I can take you. The rest is up to you."

Wes looks around, at the shadowed trees around them. "Nursery? What—" He looks back, and the words die in his throat. Mark is gone—the woods are gone. He's standing in a long hallway, an ornate wood door in front of him.

Magic. Right.

Wes takes a breath and slowly pushes open the door.

 **XXXX**

The nursery is quiet, a dozen cribs silent in the night. Wes tiptoes through the room, as though any second someone will leap out at him from the shadows. Carefully, he peers into a crib.

A baby sleeps peacefully, round ears and rosy skin, and Wes exhales in relief. He found the baby. He can head home. Smiling softly, he reaches for the child.

The baby in the next crib stirs, and Wes glances over. He freezes.

The children in both cribs are identical. A dozen cribs, a dozen babies, all the same. How is he supposed to bring the right child home? He only has one chance at this. He can't bring back another bundle of sticks—Dakota would never recover.

 _You can't believe what you see._

Wes's mouth opens in a perfect, soundless _oh_ , and he closes his eyes. He hears the sounds of sleep; heavy breaths and tiny shuffling. No help. Everyone sounds the same when they're asleep.

Wes brings his fingers to his mouth and whistles, loud and sharp.

The occupants of the cribs wake in an instant, creating a cacophony of howls and squeaks, yowls and whimpers and hoots. A menagerie of sound. And, rising above the rest, the confused, shrill cry of a human baby.

Keeping his eyes closed, Wes moves from crib to crib, searching for the baby. When the human shrieking is loudest, he reaches out, and his hands touch soft, human skin, not fur or feathers. As soon as he picks up the child, she stops crying. "Good girl," he murmurs, wrapping her up.

Wes tucks the baby against his chest and exits the nursery.

 **XXXX**

As soon as he steps into the hall, he hears it, a high, upset chittering all around him. In the corner of his eye, he sees tall, shadowy figures coming toward him. He starts running.

The faerie hill is a maze of tunnels and doors, and sometimes doors don't lead anywhere and tunnels aren't actually tunnels but dead ends. He runs with his eyes closed more often than not, avoiding doors with chittering laugher behind it. He doesn't know if he's making any progress. When he opens his eyes, it all looks the same. He closes his eyes again.

Finally, after what feels like days of running, there's a door with silence behind it. Wes doesn't know what's beyond, but he doesn't have a lot of options. He throws open the door and dives through.

On the other side of the door is a kitchen. But not just any kitchen—it's the kitchen from his home in the city, with the same polished stone countertops and wood floors and the slightly scuffed table they dragged from their previous apartment. Wes looks around, heart in his throat, and he feels dizzy.

And then Alex walks through the door.

"Morning," she chirps, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he stands there, frozen. "Have a good run?"

Wes looks down and sees himself in his running clothes, shorts and a t-shirt. He remembers running, but it was far away from this kitchen, this house. This…this is impossible.

Wes swallows, voice coming out a hoarse croak. "Where's the baby, Alex?"

"Baby?" She laughs, going to the fridge. "We don't have a baby, Wes. Though, if you want to try…" She gives him a wink as she presses a smoothie glass into his hands. "We can always talk about it, yeah?"

Wes brings the glass to his lips, stalling, mind racing. Alex runs her fingers up his arm, smirking. "I didn't know you wanted kids."

"I did." Wes doesn't drink, just whispers the words against the glass. "Not right now, but I wanted kids. You, me, and a couple of children. It was a dream."

He lowers the glass, staring at the vision of his wife. "But I can't have it with you. You're dead, Alex."

Alex blinks, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. "I'm not dead. Did you have a nightmare? Do you have a fever?"

Her hand feels just like he remembers it, cool and smooth and perfect. A perfect recollection. But…

"I borrowed your car," he says softly. "Mine was at the shop. You took the bus to work. As you were crossing the street, a taxi ran a red light and hit you. You didn't even make it to the hospital." The guilt burns, hot in his throat—if only he hadn't taken her car, if only he'd driven her, if _only_ —and he swallows. "Alex is _dead_."

The thing wearing Alex's face rears back. "Damn."

Wes lets the glass slip from his hands. "Where's the baby?"

The glass hits on the floor, and the illusion shatters. Alex becomes a wild one with black hair and silver eyes, and the baby appears on the mock-up of the kitchen table. Wes grabs the girl and backs away, and the wild one starts laughing, cruel and mocking.

"Dead!" she crows, doubling over with laughter. "Dead, dead, _dead!"_

Wes flees, and her laughter follows him.

 **XXXX**

He's been running so long, he can't even guess how much time has actually passed. He's exhausted, and it's a force of will to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He doesn't know how much longer he can do this.

Wes pauses, leans against the wall and closes his eyes, just for a second, just long enough to catch his breath.

Soft lips move against his. Wes leans in, the familiar scent of earth and musk and roses filling his nose, and he tenses, then relaxes.

His eyes are closed. This is real.

The kiss ends, and Wes opens his eyes. Mark smiles at him, running his fingers up Wes's arm.

"So," he purrs. "Wes. What's that short for?"

"Why?" Wes asks.

"Why?" One dark eyebrow goes up. "Think of how much sexier it'll be when I say your whole name." He waggles his eyebrows.

Wes can't help smiling a little. "Wesley," he murmurs, his gaze roaming. They're on the couch in his cottage. His head is spinning. This is…

"Wesley Mitchell," Marks says, rolling the name on his tongue. He's right—it does sound sexy when he says it. "Nice. You got a middle name to go with it?"

"I…"

He pauses, looking sharply at Mark. The other male is still smiling gently, like nothing is wrong, but his fingers are tapping an insistent beat on Wes's arm.

 _One-two-three. One-two-three. One-two-three._

Rule three. The most important rule of all.

Wes licks his lips, drawing back. "I can't. Not even for you, I can't."

Mark doesn't say anything, but his eyes shine with pride.

"Where's the baby?"

The changeling's eyes turn sad. "I'm sorry, Wes. I didn't have a choice."

He stands, and the vision melts away. They're surrounded by wild ones, of every shape and size and color, images constantly shifting as Wes looks. The only one who doesn't change is Mark as he moves beside a faerie wearing a delicate gold crown.

A faerie holding a wriggling, crying baby.

Wes leaps to his feet. "Give her back."

"She's not yours," the faerie king says.

"And she's not yours either." Wes takes a step forward, then stops as the collected fae start chittering at him. "I'm taking her back to her mother."

"She is not yours," the king says, shifting the bundle. "The baby is ours."

Before he can protest again, he sees a tiny mark on the baby's wrist. A little purple rose.

Wes's heart pounds. He doesn't know what to do, he can't tell if it's real or not. He looks at Mark.

Mark gives a miniscule nod of his head.

Real. It's real.

The ground drops out from Wes's feet. To have come so far, only to fail…

"What am I supposed to do now?" he whispers.

The fae start laughing, a high, grating sound. "Leave!" the king booms, laughing twice as loudly as the rest.

"Claim the child!" Mark's voice rises above the din, urgent and desperate. He pushes past the king, ignoring the way the fae's noise turns angry and mean. "Use her name, Wes. Claim her, bind her to you!"

Rule three.

Wes stares at the wild ones, and the words come to him out of thin air, like he's always known them. "I claim the child Lorelai Marie Brocato as my own!"

There's a sharp flash of light, and a weight settles onto Wes's heart, the weight of another person's life, filling some of the empty spaces inside of him. He staggers back as the baby appears in his arms, just barely keeping his feet. The rose on her wrist is gone. The noise of the wild ones rises to a frenzy.

Wes looks up and meets Mark's eyes. The changeling smiles, sad and joyful all at once, and Wes shudders to think what will happen to him for his disobedience.

He plants his feet and shouts, as loud as he can over the noise. "I claim the child Travis Michael Marks as my own!"

Silence falls, dead silence, not even the rustle of a breeze. For a second, Wes thinks he's made a terrible mistake.

Then light erupts, so bright the fae scream, and Wes nearly collapses from the weight inside his chest, filling him so completely he thinks he might burst. He grits his teeth and clutches Dakota's baby and locks his knees, refusing to fall. Not now, not so close to freedom.

The light disappears, and no one moves. No one except Mark—no, Travis now— _Travis_ as he rolls up his sleeves. He laughs at his bare arms, and Wes has never heard a more joyous sound.

"You—" Travis strides forward, grabs Wes's face and plants a kiss on his lips. "You! Thank you! _Thank you!_ "

Wes looks at the frozen tableau. "Now what?"

"Now?" Travis throws his head back, spins in a delighted circle with his arms stretched wide. "You claimed us, Wes. The strongest binding there is. There's nothing more they can do. We're _free!"_

So…" Wes shifts the baby, looking at the faerie king. The king looks furious, the very picture of wrath, but he doesn't move a millimeter. "So we can just leave?"

Travis grabs his hand and starts pulling him away. "We can leave, and we don't have to ever look back!"

They walk away, and the wild ones make no move to stop them. They just walk away into the light of the rising sun, and Travis's laugher dances around them like butterflies.

 **XXXX**

Wes is stunned to learn, when they get to town, that only a single night has passed. It felt like an eternity.

Wes doesn't think too much of it. He hands Dakota's baby to Dr. Ryan and staggers out of the doctor's office, prepared to sleep for, god, for _years_.

Then he sees Travis, lounging against a streetlight, and despite his exhaustion, Wes suddenly feels energized. He moves up to the other male, bumping shoulders. "How are you doing?"

Travis tilts his head back, grinning at the sky. "Good. God, Wes, I am so good." He glances over, gaze turning curious. "How did you know?"

Wes shrugs and starts walking. Travis falls into step beside him. "There was one town record from a couple hundred years ago, written by the parish father. One family jumped out at me. A man and a woman, both deceased, and a baby simply listed as 'missing'." He shrugs, and admits, "I didn't _know_ , exactly."

Travis chuckles. "Well, it was a damn lucky guess, then." He looks back up at the sky. "Travis Marks, huh? I like it."

"Me too." Slowly, hesitantly, Wes reaches out, twining his fingers into Travis's. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Anything I want, I guess." Travis laughs and laughs, the sound as light and airy as a cloud. "Isn't it _wonderful?"_

 **XXXX**

 **Brocato is the last name of Peter's actor. Michael is, of course, for Michael Ealy, hence why I chose it as Travis's middle name here.**

 **Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed. Reviews, comments, and constructive criticism are always welcome!**

 **Until next time~!**


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